How to install Windows 8.1 having forgotten local password.

Unfortunately the WS archives do not mention a password retriever for anything later than XP, and if unable to find a solution Iím in deep trouble, as I understand that if one doesnít upgrade to W8.1 within 2 years MS support will cease.

This would apply to all three machines in the house, as I have no recollection of the passwords originally chosen. All this is because the Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer kb 2909921, will not install on my PC or the laptop, despite numerous attempts, and I was hoping that it might work with IE11, hence the need for W8.1

Regrettably, BruceR's suggestion in the preceding thread doesn't work here, clicking 'next' with no password entered only produces an incorrect password message.

You didn't say what version of Windows you have; I'm guessing you have Windows 8.0. I know that the information I linked to is good for Windows 7, and it is probably good for Windows 8.0, but I've never tried it with Windows 8.0, so I can't say for sure.

Following the link you supplied, I got as far as the Command Prompt, when it asked for my password. Entering the Command as the password didn’t work, not that I really expected it to. Starting again from the beginning, in case something had been entered incorrectly, I noticed for the first time that the article is entitled ‘How to RESET a Password’.

Further down was a link for finding forgotten passwords, all of which seem to involve downloading an ISO file and burning a disc, which I shall do after midnight in view of the download of unknown size and my usage is still only just in line to end the month within the limit.

Does Win 8.1 mean installing my non MS programmes again?

Jim. Yes it is Windows 8. I was under the impression that was the only version that could be upgraded to 8.1. A quick look through your link suggests that they are mostly for the Windows password rather than the local one and/or they also involve burning a disc.

I’m not having much success with this. Saturday night I downloaded and burned to disk OPHcrack, described as the easiest and best password cracker. There were several versions available, for XP, Vista, I believe Win7 and an unnamed one with no tables. As there was no mention of W8 I decided that the latter was probably the latest: clearly a mistake, as after booting up the laptop it searched for 10 tables without success.

Sunday there was no mention of Win 7, so Vista was selected, but that disc also failed to find any passwords.

Monday night I tried NT Password Reset and Offline Registry Editor which was an even bigger shambles. After booting there were just pages of text – mainly numbers – which scrolled too quickly to read properly. It found 6 disks – presumably drives- and asked which to search. Initially No. 1 was chosen as the obvious choice, but when nothing was found I started again and chose No. 5 as it had the longest sequence of numbers as a name, so possibly the C drive. This failed because the system was in sleep mode, when I gave up.

This morning I tried the disc on my new PC, hoping both machines have the same password, and they both need upgrading to W8.1 due to the problem with IE. The first complication was that the disc didn’t like UEFI, and I had to switch to a bios replica. Then I lost track of what it was doing and unsure how to get it to look for the password – remember the thing is scrolling all the time – but finally managed to close it down. After rebooting I changed back to UEFI, hopefully correctly, as after that the PC ran very slowly, although it seemed OK when I returned an hour or so later. Is there any way to check whether Secure Boot is working?

Tonight I must try another password cracker, but there don’t appear to be many left.

I went to bed at 3.15 this morning, after trying to upgrade the laptop to Win 8.1, but once again failing as unable to remember the local password. This despite trying no less than 19 variations of passwords my wife and I have used in the past. It had occurred to me that it might be the password used to log in to the laptop itself, but no luck there.

So this evening I again burned the previously downloaded Ophcrack ISO to a new DVD. Initially saying that it had been successful, this changed to something about an error as I ejected the disk. Having created the disk, I decided to give it a try. Unlike the previous disk, which found nothing, this time there were three users, as follows:

A second DVD produced exactly the same result, indicating there was nothing wrong with the first one.

Assuming the password can only be changed by an administrator, I need to become the administrator, or find some way to enable the existing admin, presumably my wife. Things became somewhat complicated when the old XP PC was replaced and a Home Group set up: now there are 2 networks, Esteri’s laptop networks 1 and 2, and the laptop, previously named Esteri’s laptop has become George.

Any suggestions on how to achieve this would be welcome.

Last edited by georgelee; 2014-03-23 at 19:35.
Reason: format of table lost

I thought an explanation of how the problem was resolved might help others avoid my mistake, but first I wished to confirm it by upgrading one of the desktops to Win 8.1, which led to the puzzle.

To recap, the initial attempt to upgrade the old Dell laptop running Win 8 Pro came to a halt after about 90 minutes with my failure to remember the local password.

Turning to the Lounge for help, Jerry’s link to various password crackers eventually led to the solution, after an initial failure. None of the crackers worked for me, and I was reluctant to try those that remove the password in order to allow a new one to be set. My fear was that if the password was deleted and I messed up the installation of a new one, it would never be possible to get W8.1

Eventually deciding that there was no alternative, I tried the password removers. The fourth one tried required holding down Ctrl whilst clicking ‘Power’ in the charms bar. It was supposed to give an option ‘Repair and Update’ , from which one should choose ‘Advanced Boot’ or something similar. There was no such option listed, so I tried each one in turn hoping to find it, until coming to Passwords, where I read that if one sets a local password it has to be used to access the PC. It had never occurred to me that my local password would be the long complex password set for signing on to the PC. This was the reason for not remembering setting a local password, and why the password crackers designed to crack passwords of 8 characters or less, could not cope with my 15.

Now the puzzle. About 00.15 this morning I set out to upgrade my new desktop, confident of success and expecting it to take less time that the laptop. In fact it took 2 hours to reach the point for inserting the local password, then said it was incorrect. I made 3 attempts, as it sometimes takes that many to log in to the PC if I don’t concentrate, and then gave up. I feared that having been using the PC for over 2 hours without AV or firewall it might be infected and the password changed to lock me out.

Whilst my wife was having her shower this morning, I switched on the PC to see if a scan would run, but it was trying to restore the installation, and reaching the password stage again said it was incorrect, at which point the shower became vacant. When I returned it was downloading 10 Metro updates, which I don’t use and do not want to download during the day when it counts as part of my quota, so I forcibly shut down and had breakfast.

When switching on again, I was amazed to see not the usual Win 8 screen, or the 8.1 screen looking like a load of vomit that the laptop had initially, but a multi-coloured half rainbow effect. My suspicion that W8.1 had somehow installed was confirmed by the Store icon in the task bar – since removed – then checking on system info.

It is a mystery to me how this took place whilst the PC was closed down, and how it had come to the conclusion that my password was correct. Any ideas?